


Hattin

by Moirin De Clermont (Slayer87)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Crusades, Execution, Falling In Love, First Time, Historical References, Letters, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Templars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23051200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slayer87/pseuds/Moirin%20De%20Clermont
Summary: I have little time to write to you, a Saladin commander came to tell me to prepare myself. Nothing I didn't already know: the Knights are never redeemed. If we get caught, we get executed as soon as possible. The only thing I'm sorry about is that, after all this time, I had almost started to think I could get to the end of my days without a sword in my hand. I only have a few hours available and this parchment to fill with my last thoughts. I don't know if anyone will ever read it, but it doesn't matter.It serves me to say goodbye to you and that's enough for me.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 3





	Hattin

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2010  
> Original work

Hattin, 04 July 1187

The Holy City has fallen.

It will take the infidels a few weeks to get to Jerusalem, but it is only a matter of time now.  
  
Saladin succeeded where many had failed, taking back the land that with so many difficulties we had snatched from Muhammad's followers almost a hundred years ago.   
  
If I know well enough the power games in Outremer, a new Crusade will soon start; I don't know if it will actually do something useful.   
  
The mistakes we have made in recent months have conditioned too much the events to come, and only with a miracle will we be able to regain control of the whole Holy Land.   
  
We will probably never have a chance again, although it will take many years for this to happen.   
  
Guido di Lusignano - cursed him and all his lineage - ruined Baldovino IV's shrewd policy: we could have lived, perhaps, on these lands if he and his family had not decided that we should eliminate the presence of the Infidels at any cost.   
  
We were one step away from convincing Saladin to surrender, but it was not enough.   
  
In today's battle, decided badly and fought worse, more than 16,000 Christians died, at least according to the estimates of the Infidels, and I don't know how many of the survivors will actually be able to save themselves, counting the desert and all the problems related to it.   
  
I hope that some of my comrades in arms will have escaped the massacre, but now I can't stop crying and praying for the souls of my confreres.  
  
I have little time to write to you, a Saladin commander came to tell me to prepare myself.   
  
Nothing I didn't already know: the Knights are never redeemed.   
  
If we get caught, we get executed as soon as possible.   
  
The only thing I'm sorry about is that, after all this time, I had almost started to think I could get to the end of my days without a sword in my hand.   
  
I only have a few hours available and this parchment to fill with my last thoughts. I don't know if anyone will ever read it, but it doesn't matter.  
  
It serves me to say goodbye to you and that's enough for me.  
  
I enrolled in the Order of the Poor Companions of Arms of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon immediately after the battle of Montgisard, spurred on by the decisive victory we had achieved in that situation and animated by faith.   
  
As you well know, I am the median son of a French family from Provence, the name is of little interest and moreover, I would never want to make my relatives fall out of favour, and I have always known that I should have given myself to the military career.   
  
I have an older brother, the one who will inherit my father's possessions, and three younger sisters, who will now be married women and with children.   
  
My father wanted me to serve in the army of the sovereign of France Philip II, but before he could convince me of the benefits of being part of the Royal Army, a small group of Knights Templar arrived at our estate to deal with some affairs of the Order and to recruit new troops.   
  
I remember that at the time I was immediately fascinated by these charismatic and so independent figures. I almost laugh now at the thought of how little I knew of what awaited me in the years to come.  
  
I had been trained for military life, so I had no real difficulty getting myself accepted from that point of view.   
  
I stayed a few months in the Commandery in France, to learn the monastic rules that were part of the life of each Templar, and with those, I had some more difficulties.   
  
I had never been very accustomed to the strict rules of the Church, but I thought that once they had been in Outremer the latter would have loosened: it was impossible that in wartime they followed those rigid dictates of monastic life.  
  
The reality of the facts proved me right: in the Holy Land it was much more flexible, and it was a couple of months after my arrival that I met you.   
  
They had assigned you as a sergeant to my orders, and you were so lost in that place that you immediately made me want to cuddle you.   
  
I took you under my wing, teaching you the basics of military techniques and taking you out only for the less risky missions.   
  
I've always been more of a man of action than of thought, and I rarely asked myself the motivation for my interest in you.   
  
You were just a kid, and I knew from experience how it felt to be in an unknown place and where there are bigger forces than you are at stake.   
  
I thought that mine was simple protective instinct, like what could be felt for a younger brother, and it was only after some time that I realized what I really felt towards you.   
  
I know you think it took me so long to declare myself because I didn't want to admit that I was a sodomite, but in reality, it wasn't that that worried me, nor what they could have done to me in case they found us.   
  
Maybe you, as a sergeant, did not have access to certain information, but I was aware of at least three or four affairs within our Commandery, as well as the Commander, but nobody did anything, except in special cases, because after some time everyone was looking for a way to get distracted.   
  
I am a faithful Christian, you know it well, but you also know that by being part of the Order you become aware of a certain type of information, and although these, on the one hand, make your faith greater, on the other you allow you to take certain freedoms impossible for those who do not know.  
  
We Templars know that God is Love, in whatever form it is, and that therefore there is nothing to be ashamed of in loving a person of one's own sex.  
  
Our superiors teach us that before the Revelation of Christ other cultures had understood many other things, about the science, architecture, philosophy and religion that we lost, and that not everything in the Bible is to be taken to the letter.  
  
In fact, I never told you, I didn't declare myself because I didn't want to endanger you.  
  
I can imagine your face to this statement of mine and yes, I know it's a stupid motivation, and that you were already in danger just because you were in the Holy Land, but I believed that a relationship with me would have killed you.   
  
Maybe I was just scared, or maybe only now, that I'm going to die, I can see things clearly.  
  
However, in the end, my attempts to keep you in the dark about my feelings were in vain, as you well know: that mission, which was to be insignificant, turned into a small tragedy in which as many as four sergeants were killed and I then really feared that I had you lost.  
  
I vividly remember, as if it was yesterday, when I saw you lying on that hospital bed, with a pale and emaciated face, but alive.   
  
I think I did a show that day: I didn't want to leave you, and I got scolded by the Commander, but he was good to me, and I'm still convinced that he understood all too well what had happened.  
  
When, after a few days, they released you, I didn't waste time.   
  
I organized a mission quickly and took you with me.   
  
I remember the wide eyes of the other sergeants when I got you on my horse, so you would not get tired, and the lapidary answer that I gave to that daredevil who had dared to say that such a thing was scandalous for a Knight.   
  
I simply showed him our seal, the one in which two riders use the same horse, and with that, I silenced him.  
  
I took you with me to the oasis I had discovered some time ago by doing exploration and there I took care of you.   
  
I am not ashamed to say that those few days were my happiest in Outremer.   
  
Our first kiss took place there, while I got you off the horse to take you to the tent that, the night before, I had prepared for the two of us.   
  
You had your eyes wide and you couldn't believe what you were seeing and you were simply too beautiful for anyone who was human.   
  
I rested my lips on yours and in doing so I marked my end.   
  
From that moment on I no longer paid attention to what was going on around me, as any good Templar should always do, and completely lost contact with reality.

My only thought, the only thing on which he managed to focus my attention, was you.   
  
You clung to my shoulders as if you were losing your balance, and I found no other way to reply than to push your mouth to open under my sweet, tender assault.   
  
I led you slowly to the tent and let you in, taking care to tie the horses so they wouldn't run away (I still wonder where that moment of lucidity came from), before entering in turn.   
  
As far as I was concerned, from then on we could have attacked Saladin himself, and it would have made no difference to me.   
  
We were alone and finally, I could have you.   
  
I felt like I was wearing the Greek Fire for as long as I wanted you, and I couldn't have waited a minute longer.   
  
I made you lie down on the ground, not stopping kissing for a moment.   
  
Your taste was the most delicious I had ever tasted, and since I was French, I had savoured delights in my life.  
  
I lay down beside you, stroking your body over the bulky clothes we wore, and if I think hard about that moment, I remember how you were shaking because you wanted what was going to happen as much as I did, but you were afraid.   
  
It always makes me smile the way you, in words, were always ready to go against the dogmas they taught us from an early age, only to withdraw in practice for fear of the consequences.   
  
It was not hypocrisy, as many claimed, it was only legitimate and more than understandable fear of God.   
  
But I taught you, with practice, that nothing that happened between two people who loved each other was foreign to the Lord.   
  
During that night I talked to you about the initiation as Knight, and what exactly that ceremony involved.   
  
Here I cannot go further on what are the secrets of the Temple, and therefore I limit myself to saying that when you calm down to the point of pushing me to continue, I remember that I took you in your arms before continuing with our crazy act of love.   
  
I would like to continue with the description of that night, but I am not allowed to know which hands this letter will cross if it will ever be sent, and I do not want to put you in danger, not even to recall the memories among us.  
  
The subsequent meetings were only seconds, minutes at most, stolen from the days of training.   
  
That first night was a small dream stolen from reality.  
  
In the end, after all these years spent together, we both knew that sooner or later something or someone would come to separate us.  
  
In this damned battle we were the rear guard, and more than once we were forced to stop under the continuous attacks of Saladin, who understood very well the importance of the Templars.   
  
We are the backbone of the Christian Army, and it was enough to annihilate us to force the entire formation to surrender.   
  
I and most of my comrades in arms had understood that this was the end just looking at the battlefield, but in the name of loyalty to the Order we did not say a word, carrying out the orders given.  
  
Before leaving the attack I turned to you and kissed you, regardless of the scandalized expressions of my fellow soldiers.   
  
If I had to die, I didn't want to do it without first kissing you.   
  
As your direct superior, I ordered you to move away from that place of death, and you, with tears in your eyes, obeyed.   
  
I think it was the first time that you obeyed me to the letter.  
  
I really thought I was going to die in battle.   
  
In a way, I would have preferred it to all this.   
  
By now there is very little time left to my execution, and I only hope you are safe.

Hope you found the parchment that I slipped you into the saddlebag, and that you follow those instructions.

Go on, my beloved, and live for me.  
  
And now, sorry, but I have to go.   
  
Always remember me, and that wherever you are I will be with you.   
  


Deus volt.  
Non nobis Domine, non nobis sed nomine tuo da gloriam.


End file.
